For crying out loud

I am barely surviving here financially until I can get some aid which will partly be dependent on whether or not difficult child comes home and we'll find that out Friday. Probably he will not. I have been eating whatever food is left in the kitchen- one meal a day- and when I have to buy something, I make it last two days instead of one meal unless it's really cheap.

I just left to go to Taco Bell- yeah- that's a splurge. And my car is dead. I think it's the alternator. Not only don't I have the money to fix it, I can't get it anywhere. It won't start at all. So I can't go get food and I can't get to difficult child's court- which I'm required by law to do. At least, I can't drive my car there. So now what- I have to spend my last dollar for a freaking cab instead of food?

You know, I'm worth a lot more dead than alive right now. I'm not saying I'd take that route- I wouldn't- difficult child would get no benefit from it because he isn't old enough to get the money and when he's 18yo I seriously doubt he'll be much more responsible than he is right now.

And right now- it's a good thing I'm not near my mother. I can understand a parent detaching and expecting an adult child to be responsible for themselves. But this is the mother who had to help her bro so much even though he'd been in and out of prison, had been in a psychiatric hospital in the criminally insane ward, had tried to molest a young girl before, had lived homeless, and she brought him in the home and cost me my virginity by being raped by him. OOK- that shows a priority. And of course, she stirred up so much koi over difficult child not needing help because she thought I was such the big problem that difficult child didn't need help himself and that cost him over a year in Department of Juvenile Justice instead of Residential Treatment Center (RTC) with intensive therapy - individual and family (indirectly). But she LOVES difficult child so much that she'll threaten legal action with me over her grandparents' rights- even though she never visited him ONCE while he was in Department of Juvenile Justice. This is the woman who now can't help either or both of us now because she is trying to sell her house- or at least, she would be trying to sell her house except this week, she has an earache and felt dizzy so she can't put her house on the market, she has to wait to go to the dr to try to get well before she can get the hosue even cleaner. But God forbid, either difficult child or I should be there- we might mess it up "and then she would be in just as desparate of a situation as I'm in". Her words.

Oh- and ask her why she was so sympatheritc toward her bro and her answer is that "because it was their mother's fault- she's the one who made him that way". And then, just this past week I asked her something because I had been questioned AGAIN about the situation with me incestuous rape as a teen - this time by the mental health evaluator and this stuck out in my mind- she had taken me to a dr after I told her but yet, the incident never went to court. This finally stuck way out in my mind- why wasn't it taken to court if the dr was a mandated reporter- even that many years ago. She told me that even though the dr examined me, she had the dr submit a urine test to check for pregnancy under her name instead of mine. Now either she's lieing or this dr did something illegal and unethical. But remember- the most imporatant thing to her is that I better do what I'm supposed to. Freaking witch. If I can get to the copy store, I'm going to print that email out from her stating this sstuff.

I have NEVER met ONE. SINGLE. STRANGER. who has been as selfish or uncaring as my own family.

I hate that you are going through this. Can you call social services to get some help? Surely there is some fund to help parents get to court? Or let the PO know and maybe he can help you get there? There are many people who have no car and need help to get to court for things like this.

Your mother is not worthy of the title. Not in any way, shape or form. Though it has been many years, you can still get help through a domestic violence center or an incest survivor group. I know you have had therapy for this, and worked dang hard to be healthy. This has to be causing you huge amounts of stress now and maybe one of those groups would be able to help?

If you cannot print the email, at least save it as a text file so you can print it another time. I would also save it on a thumb drive if you have one, or a cd. You cannot afford to lose this evidence.

Thank you all for being here and being supportive. Thank goodness, it turned out to be my battery on my car and I was able to be jump-started with the help of a neighbor, then drove to an auto place that happened to be where I boughtt this last battery. Even though it was a few years old, they gave me a discount for coming back there and returning this one (?) and buying a new one from them. So it was bad timing, financially, but ended up costing half of what I was afraid it would cost.

I drove straight from there to the grocery store to buy eggs, sandwich meat, bread, a few canned stuff, and a pack of lower- grade beef steaks that I can cook on the grill. I had some potatoes at home. So, food will be here if difficult child comes home this week. I talked to PO today though and unless difficult child can convince him otherwise when PO sees him in detention tomorrow, it looks like difficult child will probably end up back in Department of Juvenile Justice. Truthfully, Department of Juvenile Justice is better than the detention center because he can make up the missed spanish work from school there whereas they don't teach spanish in detention so he'd lose a year's credit for work he did 3/4 of the year- he had all A's & B's on his report card. Plus, in Department of Juvenile Justice they cover his medical costs. In detention, I'm responsible but yet I can't get him on medicaid if I apply while he's in detention.

I am glad that the car was easily fixed. I know you were really stressed about it. Is it time to find a food pantry in your area? Most ask no questions about income.

You may want to contact a Catholic church in your area. Most can tell you where their charity office is. My father in law volunteers in one where they will pay one bill every so many months for you. They make a check to the creditor but it cannot be for credit cards. They also have a pantry where they send food with people. They get all the leftovers from the Panera in their area every day. These go into a couple of giant freezers and are given away along with other food items. they used to have one freezer for beef and one for poultry.

There is NO shame, esp not in your situation. Your financial problems are due to the extra everything that you have had to invest into raising your difficult child so that he had a prayer of living a life where he contributes to society. When you add in all the outrageous demands of the GAL and PO in the past, you really are not someone who got into a financial mess by being stupid. If anything, the PO and GAL should have to pay off your debts and your house because they made so many demands that no one could meet them and work. Then they made difficult child so much worse by constantly telling him everything was your fault, even when you were doing exactly what they stupidly demanded.

I hope difficult child has got his head out of his tookus and put on straight. That he will be able to come home and get a part time job to help you out. The debt is his responsibility also because he has chosen to make so many poor decisions. I just don't know if that is a realistic expectation.

Anyway, I hope things start to get better for you in the very near future.

Thanks Susie. I do blame the previous PO and GAL for assuming things were true that they had not even checked into or asked questions about and the GAL put more weight on what a somewhat distant relative said over what school district and psychiatrist and therapist said- she never even spoke to therapist and psychiatrist. PO just went along with GAL without questioning. So yes, I feel they were incompetent.

I also blame my mother and bro for putting their wants and anger or resentment or whatever it is toward me above what was in difficult child's best interest and having the audacity to interfere in our lives without having a clue about the juvenile justice system or what was really at stake when my mom only saw difficult child about once a year and my bro saw him about once every 2-3 years.

Then, I blame difficult child for his choices, and not the least, myself for failing him somehow- I just still don't know where I went wrong. All I know for sure is that while all these other people seem to think I was just not doing what I should, my life was being controlled by trying to keep a job, make all necessary appts/meetings/court appearances, keep domestic chores done, etc, and I didn't have the "free choices" they seem to think I did. I did the best I could- if they had a better answer, why didn't any of them say what it was instead of just saying "what you're doing is causing this"?

I am right there with you, agreeing with almost everything you said. I do think that there is nothing you could have done differently to change things once your family started in on you. maybe I am over sensitive about family dysfunction right now, but I think you need to move the blame away from yourself and on to people who deserve it.

I think if you were to write the story of all you have gone through with the court, family problems, PO, GAL, everything that it would be a powerful statement about the way we handle juveniles in this country. It sure seems like every single bad decision that could have been made was made. The various people did not let difficult child fall through the cracks. They stuffed him down into them.

Remember, you have never once woken up and asked yourself "How bad can I mess my kid up today?" I am NOT sure that your bro and maybe your mom have not asked that question in regards to you AND difficult child. I am sorry you have had to cope with all of it. Be nice to yourself. You deserve it!
Hugs.

Thank you again- we have court in the morning. I'll update tomorrow afternoon.

You hang in there, too. Remove yourself from the dysfunction as subtly and quickly as possible- I thought I could have family for difficult child at arms length, just so difficult child would have SOME family besides me- I regret that now.

Can you imagine if you situation with Wiz or Jess ended up under the courts scrutiny and the people looking into it were all under 35 with no kids of their own and spent more time listening to your bro than the dr's, school district, and any MH profs involved?

And whether this thread is too dead to be read anymore or not, I just have to say this to get this off my chest. If you refer to my second post in the thread- the one about my mother- can you possibly imagine sitting at home trying to figure out how to get medical tests done in such a way that covers your bro and keeps it from being found out that he raped your child? because I can assure you- if my bro EVER lays a hand on mine or creates a situation where some other adult who's much older does, my focus won't be on how to cover somebody's butt. Unless you consider a car over their butt the same thing.

And it isn't just difficult child's antics that have cost me money for attny's and time off work that cost me my job- I spent thousands for an attny to prepare for the custody battle and hours off work over it and going to court testifying about it all. But oh yeah- my mother had nothing to do with it- BS- she is the one who got my bro stirred up enough to pursue it.

And how she can think that her mother caused her bro's problems, and I caused all difficult child's issues, but she had NOTHING to do with my issues or my bro's issues- sure. And on top of that- if a parent is going to trash an adult child of their's, I expect that parent to present some paperwork from MH prof's and school district saying what evaluation was done and what help was pursued when that person was a minor and that parent was responsible for getting them any necessary help- funny how she can't produce any of that. You know why- because it doesn't exist.

And Lord help me someday to overcome that this woman has a PhD in psychology.

Oh, my mom doesn't need records from anyone to trash me if she wants to. They might interfere with her version of reality. If she EVER saw the tdocs notes after she sent her version of Wiz' medical and social history she would have a coronary. The therapist said that it was not only highly inappropriate it was also full of contradictions and comments about how she would be better suited to raise Wiz. The therapist was horrified. Ever since we moved from OK to Cincy when difficult child was almost 3 my mom never let up on telling us that if it was really hard then Wiz could come live with her. When we all lived with her she did a LOT of things to undermine us. Wiz finally told us that when she used to go in and snuggle with him until he fell asleep she spent some of the time telling him how wonderful and amazing he was and how we did not appreciate him and what a bad job we were doing. He was 7- 10yo at the time. She made a special note to tell him how he was like gfgbro and it was such a good thing and he could be just like his uncle who was so great. Wiz had already had the sunburn and many other unhappy memories with gfgbro.

Some parents just are not in touch with reality and rational behavior. Your mother is on the crazy train riding through delusion land in the world of revisionist history. My mother has spent plenty of time on that train too.

No way in this world or the next would I waste a moment worrying about not exposing someone to the law after they sexually assaulted my child. I would be finding prisoners in his cell block to write to about all sorts of ways he abused little kids. VERY few convicts who have been exposed to the other inmates for doing that have good days. Even criminals in jail usually will not tolerate someone hurting a child that way. Not if they know about it.

Then he had better hope and pray he doesn't get out soon.. Cause I would ruin his world in any way possible that didn't involve adding to my child's trauma.

Your mother is so toxic and sick thather bathwater probably has to be stored as toxic waste. That much evil taints everything it touches. I am so sorry that your mother treated you this way.

I have never found a stranger who cared enough to hurt me. It has been people who I know who do the most damage.